Lesley Kagen - Good Graces

“Are you gonna come out, too?” I ask when she hands over The Hidden Window Mystery .

This is the third Nancy Drew that I’ve read to them and, by far, our favorite. There’s a colored woman in this story. Lovable old Beulah who serves corn pudding and strawberry shortcake . Just like my Ethel! The story also takes place in the South so that’s gotta give her a home, sweet home feeling.

“Ya know, sittin’ down in the shade and listenin’ to ya read sounds mighty nice,” Ethel says. “Don’t think the sheets are gonna dry on the line today anyways. Too hot and wet.” She does her slidey walk to the kitchen window that makes me think she’s hearing Waltzing Matilda in her head. She calls out, “Y’all ’bout done out there, Father?”

I couldn’t hear his answer, but Ethel turns back and gives me a look that says whatever it is you are thinkin’ at the present moment, it’d be a mighty good idea to keep it to yourself and get your behind outta that door.

“What a delightful surprise,” Father Mickey says when we join him and Mrs. Galecki under the crab apple tree. He is a different kind of Irish than our family is. He is black Irish, which doesn’t mean he’s a Negro born in Killarney the way people might think. It means that Father has hair the color of a funeral, not a stop sign. Most Irish people have bad tempers, but black Irish people are famous for having the worst. “Hello, Sally. Haven’t seen you since school let out.”

“Good afternoon, Father… I… I came over to read to Mrs. Galecki.” I hold up the book so he doesn’t think I’m lying.

“Ah, yes. Your sister tells me you’re quite the reader.”

“Don’t you mean she tells you that I’m a bonehead?”

When Father Mickey smiles grandly, I can see what everybody goes silly over.

“That’s a beautiful watch you’ve got there.” He taps his finger on the face. “A Timex, isn’t it?”

“It was my daddy’s,” I say, forgetting that pride is a sin. Father musta forgot that, too, because the watch he has on is very fancy. “Mother got it made small for me.”

Father says with a twinkle in his eye, “Helen’s always been a very considerate person.”

I wouldn’t use that word to describe Mother in a million years. I guess he must be referring to the way she used to be back in the olden days. Before Daddy died. Before she got married to Hall. Before she got sick.

“Is there anything I could offer ya before ya go, Father?” Ethel with the perfect manners asks. “A glass a fresh-squeezed lemonade should set ya right.”

“I cannot imagine anything I’d enjoy more, but I’m afraid I’ve got another parishioner to attend to.” He lifts up my wrist and taps my watch. His fingers are soft and his nails are shiny like they’ve been painted with something. “Takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’,” he says, not to me, but Mrs. Galecki. “Just like you, Bertha.”

Mrs. Galecki’s head bobs up and down, but that doesn’t mean she is agreeing with him. She’s got some palsy.

Father slips his golden chalice that he brought the Holy Communion in over from the church into a black velvet bag and says, “Tell your sister to come a little earlier Tuesday night, Sally. We have a lot to discuss.”

That’s the day Troo goes up to church for her extra religious instruction. If she doesn’t get holier soon, she’s gonna end up going to Vliet Street School. I will miss walking up to Mother of Good Hope with her and eating lunch together and even ringing doorbells on our way home, but most of all, how will I ever keep watch over my sister if we’re not going to the same school? The thought of her being out of my sight that many hours of the day makes me want to curl up. The only one that could prevent that from happening is Father Mickey.

He tells Ethel, “Tomorrow, same time,” and heads toward the front of the house, but stops at the bushes that run alongside it. When he trots back and lays the pale pink flower in Mrs. Galecki’s lap, he says, “A rose by any other name.”

Now, if you weren’t me, you would be thinking to yourself, Boy, how did this neighborhood get so lucky? This priest is really something! He can even make the same quote that Donny O’Malley would make when he’d stuff fallen petals into his daughters’ pillowcases so they would be guaranteed sweet dreams. But on this hot, hot day, all I can think of as Father Mickey leaves to minister to another one of his flock is how much he reminds me of the black ice we get on the streets during winter. It’s slick. And invisible to the naked eye.

What’s wrong with me?

Ethel places the rose Father picked off the bush gently into Mrs. Galecki’s high hair and says, “Don’t that look nice. Miss Sally’s gonna read to us now, Bertha.”

Her patient doesn’t answer. She’s fallen back to sleep again. She does that. I can be right in the middle of a sentence and kablooie -she’s dead to the world. That’s okay. I decided a long time ago that reading still counts as a charitable work even if she can’t hear it. I open the book and bring my face down to the pages and breathe. Books do not have the reputation of smelling nice, but they do. Not as good as mimeograph, but still very good.

“The name of this chapter is ‘An Angry Suspect,’” I say, kicking off my sneakers and getting comfy in the backyard chair. “ ‘Bess was so startled to hear the name of the man for whom the girls were searching that she-’ ”

“Bertha? Bertha?” Ethel shrieks. She pops up and presses her ear down to her boss’s lilac blouse. I am not worried. This happens all the time. At least once a week, Ethel is sure that Mrs. G has sucked in her last breath.

While Ethel’s still down on her chest, Mrs. Galecki’s eyes fly open and she says in the meanest voice, “What’re you doing? Trying to steal my locket like everything else?”

That completely flabbergasts me. How dare she say something so cruel about the woman who gives her bubble baths and wipes the drool off her mouth and sometimes her heinie?

Before I can suggest to Mrs. Galecki that she should count her blessings, Ethel lifts her head off her chest and says back so kindly, “Locket’s safe, Miss Bertha.” My good friend stands and pulls me a few steps away. “She’s been gettin’ more and more confused the last coupla weeks. This mornin’ she went yelly about how her emerald necklace was missin’.”

I don’t understand why this is bothering her so much. Being a nurse, Ethel should know the same way I do that old ladies’ brains can really go to pot when their arteries get hard. Our other granny changed her name from Margie O’Malley to Marie Antoinette on her eighty-sixth birthday.

“Where did ya end up findin’ it?” I ask.

“Tha’s the funny thing. I looked and looked for that necklace, but it weren’t in the hatbox under the bed where it usually is or nowheres else. Bertha didn’t come right out and say so, but…” Ethel shrugs. “I think she’s believin’ I’m the cat burglar who’s been sneakin’ around.”

I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it. I burst out laughing. Ethel is way too big to sneak around anywhere. When she’s somewhere, you know it.

I remind her, “Once somebody’s mind takes a turn around the bend like that, not only do their memories get backed up, but they can start sayin’ strange things.” What I’m trying to tell her as politely as I can is that Mrs. Galecki’s brain has gone as stiff as her hair. “Granny Marie Antoinette used to misplace stuff all the time and then blame her husband, Louie, for stealin’ it. Her husband’s name was Alvin.”

Ethel looks at me and, for the first time ever since I have known her, she doesn’t have anything to say. Her eyes that are usually gentle brown pools look stirred up when she returns to Mrs. Galecki’s side and places her strong hands on the chair that she starts pushing carefully toward the back door of the house so her patient, who is snoozing again, doesn’t get a bumpy ride. “She was real attached to that necklace,” Ethel tells me. “Her husband gave it to her the night ’fore he went off to the war.”